Hot Tub Wisdom

What makes you go? What is your motivation? Do you find it inside? Do others motivate you? Do you motivate others?

There's got to be something more. When I'm giving my all, and feel like theres nothing left, I need motivation. See, the thing is I KNOW I can do it, sure, but knowing and doing are completely different. I know I can compete. But having the patience, discipline, time, strength, and maintaining the motivation needed is an ungodly task. The reward? The ultimate accomplishment. The sacrifice? Everything. You see, bodybuilding isn't a sport, it's a way of life. This year, I'm not making any resolutions. I'm not setting any goals. Thats the thing, I've known my goals all along, I just need to accomplish them. Not in a years time, but however long it takes. Through the ups and the downs. Drawing inspiration from others as I inspire those around me. Not only am I building my physical body up, but I'm building myself up as a man. Extreme thinking? Ya maybe, but at the end of each day, I'll know that when I wake up, I'm one day closer to my goal.

Life is scary, get used to it. There's no magical fixes, it's all up to you.

The only thing an excuse gives you is an option out of the life

that you would like to live.

What's your excuse?

William Andrew Smith PhB

A Bloody Mess

I hate getting honked at. Its not my fault the red sea parted out my left nostril mid lane change, sheesh. There goes my favorite white... err red tee. Seriously, sometimes I think people go though life like they drive their car. People like being in control of everything and a car allows them to do just that, to an extent. But what happens when other people or events come into or get in the way of our cars? How do we react? Sometimes we let them in, sometimes they let themselves in, costing us time or jeopardizing our safety, which by the way is the only grounds for an acceptable honk. Sometimes they lead us to where we want to go, but that's just it... Where do we want to go and who are we going to follow? When we allow other people to influence our life, we are placing a certain trust in them that they know where they are going, or at least that together, we both will make it there. Unfortunately, there are people in our lives that seem trustworthy, but really just use us for their own benefit, to get to their destination, leaving us lost. The challenge in life is to surround yourself with people who will guide you in the right direction. Let someone in and see if they return the favor, and the next time you see a car swerving, make sure its not just some unfortunate fool with a bloody nose before you go tooting your horn.

I may not know where I am driving right now, but what I do know is that there is only one person who's going to give me directions, and his name isn't TomTom.

Safe Travels.

William Andrew Smith Phb.

Wrunning. Just for the fun of it.

Writing is funny. Well, not all writing is funny, but the idea of writing for fun humors me. I relate it to running. I never understood the joy of running as I was growing up, just as in writing, yet I knew all along there was a purpose for the two. In my maturation, I have come to the conclusion that in the right context, both running and writing can be fun, literally... Get it.

I would like to create a word. My favorite shoes of all time are the Jordan Trunners. I mention this because Trunner = Trainer + Runner . Genius. In the same fashion (get it) I introduce my word: Wrunning. For those of you who are bad at math I will show my work: [Wrunning = Writing + Running].

You see, growing up I had to write in school when I didn't want to and I had to run in football practice when I didn't want to, hence my above perplexion of "wrunning for fun". The thing I never fully understood was that in doing these things, it better prepared me mentally and physically. Realizing this and wrunning recreationally can in turn be fun, I get it. The difficult part is I have neither a coach nor a teacher to whistle or detain me if I slack in my wrunning. I have always thought it would be awesome to be a coach and/or a teacher... to help others achieve their ultimate goal. Why not start with myself?

C'mon, It'll be fun.

William Andrew Smith PhB.

Life, The Bored Game

I hate fish. If you were to come across a situation in life and say to yourself, "somethings fishy about this," it would mean that something is not right. The definition of not right is wrong, or left, but lefties don't matter so we will stick with wrong, meaning that fish are wrong. I believe my mentor Vince said it best, "stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life," which is great except for the fact that I despise tuna, and my life is still boring, so I got to thinking...

What is life? To be completely honest with you, I never really liked the game of life. It was too complicated and not trash talkable. I also was never a fan of Life cereal due to the fact that unless you wolf down the cereal in 60 seconds, it turns into more of a cold porridge, and even Goldilocks passed on that. I did however envy the kid on the box of Life, and wanted to be that kid. LIFE magazine was never in my household, but I would assume its just a bunch of filler articles about semi-current events and politics. The lifetime channel... too easy. Basically what I am trying to say is that life is a soggy mess of a game, with some low budget dramas and maybe a few worthwhile stories thrown in here and there.

Sometimes I think that I am no good at this game of life that we all live. I mean, I could play the game, sure, and I have; but all along, I have felt that there is just something missing. P.S. I always hated playing board games when key components were missing. How hard is it to put the game away, sheesh. Other than focusing on the missing pieces, I sometimes think that I just need to jump off this board. There are only so many times one can hear the word "Sorry!" before they give up and become a poor sport. Like the guy who immediately has to tell everyone that the game sucks, only because he just rolled doubles three times in a row.

But what if I did jump off the board? Not like walking the plank, but instead creating my own board. A board where everyone can play and be themselves. No avatars, or game pieces, just the real person. Where the players help each other through the game, and the purpose is not to win, but to live. Not just live, but live fulfilled, knowing that even though you might have to hop back three spaces, there are others on that space to move forward with. Rules? Ya sure there are rules, but who reads the rules anyways? There is right and there is wrong and if you cant tell if something is one or the other, its probably wrong. Trust me, if you know me then you know that indecisive kills. This game wouldn't have a single path, but rather a series of paths so that no matter how bad you are playing, you can always find the right way if you really want to.

That sounds like a game I want to play. A game I want to play with complete strangers, as well as friends. With people from all backgrounds and of any age. People who I can help, and who can help me. A game worth playing for the rest of my life.


William Andrew Smith PhB.

Don't Hate The Player Hate The Game

I hate cats. To wipe out cats, I feel there needs to be a plague of curiosity. When and where I find the appropriate tools in which to pull this off, the worlds domestic house cat will have nein lives, get it? I take my frustration out on cats today because I can't help but be jealous. My indecisiveness is their curiosity. As one of my good friends Don once said, "indecisive kills," and he couldn't have been more right, which was funny because he's Don.

Indecisiveness killed me this weekend. It was actually a double homicide involving both my heart and my wallet, thank god I'm still ripped out of my mind. The suspect has dark brown hair, goes about 5'3", 115 pounds, and may or may not be Asian. She also happens to be gorgeous, funny, original, smart, a beer connoisseur, a big dork, a horrible driver (which would make a case for the Asian debate), and most pertinent, heartless.

This girl, is the first girl to ever get me as an individual. She could read me, she had comebacks, she played my games. She is the only girl that I have let see my embarrassingly bruised heart, which is still recovering from Winter '07.

That reminds me of a note that I made to myself which read: lesbians weapon of choice - scissors.

The point of this prologue is to show how without even trying, this girl had me hooked. It was easy, too easy. It was like we knew each other for years. I came to Vegas with all of my heart and money chips that I had saved up over the last month and a half and placed them on what I thought was a sure thing. I clearly wasn't thinking, because Billy Goat Smith's rule number 17 is "There is no such thing as a free lunch," meaning that life doesn't have sure things, and apparently we all need to hang on to our lunch money because if the bully steals it, we are without lunch.

I am not a gambling man, or so I thought, but I have managed to successfully gamble away everything I have worked so hard to save up over the last two months, without even touching a slot machine, roulette wheel, craps table, or Jill's dark-skinned counterpart. It's not the money that hurts me, for even though it's gone, I can start harvesting some more tomorrow from the tree at the Allison. The part that hurts is my heart. I'm sitting here on the airplane, physically in pain for what "happened in Vegas" or rather what didn't happen. All that matters now is that my chips are staying in Vegas, along with the girl who won my game. The girl who successfully managed to figure me out, hook me, get me to jump in the boat, and then ignored me as I flopped around. At least I am thrown back into this War that I call life. Tomorrow, I go into battle once again. Nothing to fight for except the rebuilding of my heart, my judgment, and my self-esteem.

To whoever is reading this I leave you with the irony that is the motto in which I told myself I was going to live by this year as my resolution.
You gotta pay to play.
Unfortunately I accomplished exactly that. I payed, I played, I lost.


William Andrew Smith PhB.